Okay, before I am beaten with sticks by those who think me a beast, determined to find fault with all that is good in the world, let me say that the thought is wonderful and ending worldwide poverty is a highly worthwhile cause, and kudos to the bands who performed at Live 8 for taking the time to do so.

That said, I think the whole thing was pretty corny.

For one thing, there's the name. Live 8. I spent a lot of time wondering, what on earth does that mean? Then I heard it explained that it was about convincing the G-8 summit leaders to make relieving the debt of Third World countries one of their primary focuses. Hmmmmm...

But what has really turned me off to the idea was something I heard on Newstalk that I would hugely appreciate someone debunking if it's not true. Apparently, every act that performed at Live 8 received a $15,000 gift bag.

$15,000? Um...isn't that $15,000 per act that could have gone towards ending world poverty? I wonder if these people feel insulted that the organizers felt they had to be bribed into caring about something. Did a similar thing happen with Live Aid?

I don't know. Something about having another massive benefit concert for no other reason than that it's the 20th anniversary of Live Aid just seems to carry with it this aura of fake. Help me out here - convince me that it's not.

I don't know if that's true Mandy, but if it is then it'd be fuckin' sick that they're doing this.

Another problem that I have with Live8 is that it should have been a charity concert and promoters should have sold tickets. Right now there's a huge famine in Sudan and other parts of Africa, and it would have been the right thing to do to gather profits to help those people who are dying everyday from starvation and disease. Yet the concert, could also serve it's intentional purpose of carrying the flag to drop the debt.

Yet, I'm not completely sure if asking to drop the debt is the right thing. Many countries in Africa have corrupt governments and leaders that will benefit directly from a drop on their international debt, to either increse their political and military power by buying more weapons, or spend it all on a lavish lifestyle. So the good will and the huge effort of trying to help those in need, will be completely wasted.

[QUOTE][QUOTENAME]Brandon wrote: [/QUOTENAME]... and now the "best you can offer is Mr. Jingles? HA! He's... just pathetic.[/QUOTE]

I don't know if that's true Mandy, but if it is then it'd be fuckin' sick that they're doing this.

Another problem that I have with Live8 is that it should have been a charity concert. Right now there's a huge famine in Sudan and other parts of Africa, and it would have been the right thing to do to gather profits to help those people who are slowly dying everyday. Along with that of course, the petition to drop the debt.

Yet, I'm not completely sure if asking to drop the debt is the right thing. Many countries in Africa have corrupt governments and leaders that will benefit directly from a drop on their international debt, to either increse their political and military power by buying more weapons, or spend it all on a lavish lifestyle. So the good will and the huge effort of trying to help those in need, will be completely wasted.

Especially since asking the leaders of the world to drop Mozambique's debt would be equivalent to asking Jessica Simpson to say something intelligent. It ain't happenin'.

Yet, I'm not completely sure if asking to drop the debt is the right thing. Many countries in Africa have corrupt governments and leaders that will benefit directly from a drop on their international debt, to either increse their political and military power by buying more weapons, or spend it all on a lavish lifestyle. So the good will and the huge effort of trying to help those in need, will be completely wasted.

That's what I thought, as well. Seems it would have more of a direct effect to raise the cash and send in some food, AIDS meds, vaccines, help clean the water supplies, etc..

I don't know if that's true Mandy, but if it is then it'd be fuckin' sick that they're doing this.

Another problem that I have with Live8 is that it should have been a charity concert and promoters should have sold tickets. Right now there's a huge famine in Sudan and other parts of Africa, and it would have been the right thing to do to gather profits to help those people who are dying everyday from starvation and disease. Yet the concert, could also serve it's intentional purpose of carrying the flag to drop the debt.

Yet, I'm not completely sure if asking to drop the debt is the right thing. Many countries in Africa have corrupt governments and leaders that will benefit directly from a drop on their international debt, to either increse their political and military power by buying more weapons, or spend it all on a lavish lifestyle. So the good will and the huge effort of trying to help those in need, will be completely wasted.

Overall I am thrilled with Live 8, but...it is a confirmed fact..in all the Philadelphia newspapers that made it onto the wire services for the international papers.

Every performer at (at least at the... ...Philadephia concert of Live 8, I do NOT know if it was for any of the other 9 cities who participated in Live 8),...

... received a $12,000 gift bag (like artists get at the Oscars &amp; such), each containing a $6,000 Bertolucci watch, a $2,000 Gibson Guitar, inside a $3,000 Hugo Boss bag.....

The Philadelphia Inquirerer broke the story...and I am apalled.

If you multiply $12,000 by the hundreds of artists that performed, that's like a million dollars they could have donated to the starving in Africa.

Plus...why would artists accept gifts ''bribes'' at a charity event?

What the hell were the promoters thinking, accepting these ''gifts''? I am sure that Gibson, Hugo Boss and Bertolucci offered the gifts too because like at the Oscars and other high profile artist events, it is free endorsement/promotion for the companies providing the gifts.

But...why did Bob Geldof or the promoters not say, ''Hey this is a charity. Thank you for your offer, but NO thank you''....

...''You may feel free to donate monies in the amounts of the gifts to poverty and the Band Aid Trust. But we cannot accept gifts, especially of such extravagant, excess...when this is all about people dying, and poverty.''

How could Geldof, or promoter Harvey Goldsmith or WHOEVER allowed this to happed, HAPPEN? The press is rightfully having a field day with this. And my heart sank when I started reading this in all the newspapers.

It's a travesty and a scandal that should not have been allowed to happen.

Saturday and Sunday I never felt more proud of Bob Geldof and every music artist and person who put Live 8 together.

TODAY, however, I feel sick...and yes, I have been following the news of the rocketing album sales for all of the participating artists as well as the scandal of the $12,000 gift bags (all for millionaire artists who don't need any damn ''gift'' bag) and shouldn't need a ''bribe'' to volunteer their time for charity.

And..I have felt quite disillusioned, saddened, and feel my own heart and my emotions were manipulated by some con artists who are like snake oiler evangelists, playing on my emotions...to line their pockets.

I think every person on QZ, knows how strongly (in a positive way)I feel about Bob Geldof, Bono, Live Aid, Live 8, the Band Aid Trust...but..this is all...

...unacceptable. Geldof said skeptics should stop being cynical.

I..was NEVER cynical. I believed Geldof and Bono were good and doing the right thing..and so were all the music artists involved.

....I'm not naive....

.. I KNOW alot of the music artists knew this would boost their record sales and it's great free publicity. But I thought that MOST of the artists were doing it for the right reasons..and as for those $12,000 gift bags...again...UNACCEPTABLE.

Pink Floyd have said they are donating all royalties they will recieve from the boost in album sales post Live 8, and have enocuraged other artists and record labels involved to do the same.

Of course a bands career will get a boost from performing putting on a good show for an audience of billions. I seem to remember that Queen's back catalogue sales shot up immediately after Live Aid. Would any of us have accused them of cynically cashing in? And did they donate all related royalties to 'feed the world'?

And yes, the $12,000 goody bags are just... stupefying. I'd be very surprised if Sir Bob personally approved this. I that many of the acts that performed in Philadelphia will auctioning theirs off and donating the proceeds to charity. ((At the very least, those peple can't be short of watches and guitars, right?)

I know there were no gift bags at the Canadian Live 8 show. There was however free beer and if you know a Canadian you know beer is a good incentive :)

I was already cynical about the motives of some artists but a large number of the Canadian performers are involved in foundations which work in third world countries. I suspect that it is similar for the other Live 8 performers as well. The more self centered performers with questionable motives should not detract from the good acts of sincere people.

I'm not sure that the demands made by musicians are correct or will heeded by the politicians. However people are aware of the issue of poverty in developing nations again so I'll take that as a good result.

The one thing that kind of bothered me about Live 8 (besides the disastrous coverage from MTV &amp;amp; VH1!) was that it was free to get in. If they charged even just $5 a person, it could do so much for to help with the debt. I was watching it with my mom who said that they could've also made it a telethon and left a number on the bottom of the screen so people could donate money. Of the 5.5 billion or so people that were watching Live 8, that could've also brought in money to help. I know the concert was supposed to be about raising awareness, and they weren't asking for anything but our voices, but our voices can't really help the children that are starving or get any medication. And a $5 cover charge isn't that much to the people attending the concert, but it could amount to at least a start in relieving the debt.

I am appalled at the Phillidelphia gifts. I really hope that these artists either didn't accept or will auction them off for charity.

but whoever said it is right - how could these companies think that offering these gifts was appropriate?

i doubt that the artists knew they would receive this. Maybe I'm wrong, but it doesn't seem like it's somethinng that would've been known before hand.

I'm sure geldof didn't know about it either. It sounds like it was just the philli concert which did this.

As for selling tickets, yes it could have made money, but it would have made the thing seem much closer to the original, and I think they were keen to distance it in many ways so the focus was about pressure on the G8 meeting

The one thing that kind of bothered me about Live 8 (besides the disastrous coverage from MTV &amp;amp;amp; VH1!) was that it was free to get in. If they charged even just $5 a person, it could do so much for to help with the debt.

Geldof was very clear that this was about raising awareness in the days before the G8 summit. He wants pressure on governments, not cash for charity.

Raising money would have been a small conflict of interest in addition to any headaches derived from having to administer it. Besides, charging 5 bucks a head would have barely netted 1 million for all of the shows. That's nothing when the debt is in the billions.